Ten firehoses.

Another Friday, another late post. Well, there’s always the weekend ahead.

Truth be told, we’re even more confined to the second floor of the house as this kitchen project lurches on, although I hope it’s better this weekend. Yesterday was the absolute worst, with the appliances being delivered (one of them, anyway) along with the cabinets, which together filled every inch of space in the living and dining room. The cabinets are being built and hung today, so some of the footprint is reduced, but I have a stove in my living room and pretty much everything is filthy now.

And so I am not a very happy person. I need order. I have chaos. They tell me relief will come next week. We shall see.

This is what my chaos looks like, in the meantime.

Another reason I’ve not been motivated to write: The news just keeps coming. The portrait unveilings, subject of the last post, feel like they happened in 2012, now that they’ve been eclipsed by the school shooting, the Playboy Trump mistress and the Russia indictments, all in 48 hours. I read the Playboy-mistress story at 5:30 this morning, and the Russian indictments dropped during the lunch hour. I feel dizzy.

That’s not even counting ancillary stories, like Scott Pruitt flying around the country in first class because someone was mean to him the last time he sat in coach, “mean” being “told him to stop ruining the environment.”

Does it seem like something in the air has finally changed, though? I’m wary of epistemic closure, and I try to pay attention to the other side, I really do, but it does seem we’re in a different place now, public opinion-wise, than we were a year ago. Every parent I know with a school-age child is incandescent with rage. But I don’t get out nearly enough to qualify as a public-opinion expert.

In the meantime, even though Jolene posted this already, I want to bring it to your attention again: Just because you agree with a particular organization doesn’t mean they’re playing by the rules. In this case, it’s Everytown for Gun Safety, and their oft-quoted statistic that there have been 18 school shootings this year. No there hasn’t:

Everytown has long inflated its total by including incidents of gunfire that are not really school shootings. Take, for example, what it counts as the year’s first: On the afternoon of Jan. 3, a 31-year-old man who had parked outside a Michigan elementary school called police to say he was armed and suicidal. Several hours later, he killed himself. The school, however, had been closed for seven months. There were no teachers. There were no students.

Which makes it not a school shooting, in my mind. The organization I work for now has a hashtag: #FactsMatter. They really do. You can’t build good policy on a weak foundation. Keep that in mind the next time the news blows up, which will probably be in…about eight minutes.

Have a good weekend, all.

Posted at 5:46 pm in Current events, Same ol' same ol' |
 

55 responses to “Ten firehoses.”

  1. Dexter said on February 16, 2018 at 6:04 pm

    The not-school shootings news reminds me of a story I heard earlier this week about a parolee in New York who moved in, temporarily, with a friend in the city as he attempted to get his life together. Immediately he was revoked and sent back to prison. His violation was he had moved to a residence that was too near a school. He was a sex offender, the school was scheduled for demolition and had been closed since last school year. Tough shit, pal, and back you go to stir. Sorry I have no link, just XM radio hearsay.

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  2. Jolene said on February 16, 2018 at 6:05 pm

    Because it might provide a bit of weekend entertainment, I’m bringing forward the last comment on the previous post. Not heavy news of the sort Nancy describes above, but an example of the bizarre choices people sometimes make when they don’t know what to do.

    —————————-

    Item #5734 in the Catalog of Strange Things People Do comes from an online chat conducted by Carolyn Hax, who writes a kickass advice column for the Washington Post.

    Somebody wrote in with this problem:

    I’ve been pretending to go to college for the past almost four years when I actually dropped out in my freshman year. I’ve been working as a temp since then and living “off campus”. My family doesn’t know since I fake my grades, account statements, everything. None of them went to college so it hasn’t been too hard to fool them. I’ve been using the money they’ve been giving me to help me afford my room and board. I know I’m going to have come clean soon since they’re expecting me to graduate this spring with an engineering degree. I just don’t know how I’m going to do this.”

    I found it stunning that anyone would go to this level of effort (Fake tuition bills! Fake grades!) to fool their parents about what is, after all, fairly common—dropping out of college. But then two chat participants wrote in to say that they had family members who’d done something similar.

    At my advanced age, I should no longer be surprised at the kooky things humans do, but I’m still shaking my head about this one.

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  3. Dexter said on February 16, 2018 at 6:07 pm

    Looks like WaPo has gone 100% blackout paywall…bye-bye WaPo. I’ll find the Playboy/Trump story somewhere else.

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  4. Jakash said on February 16, 2018 at 6:31 pm

    Dexter,

    I’ve tried to mention this on the ole nn.c several times before. FWIW — if you clear your browser when you hit the 5-article-a-month limit, you can read as many WaPo and NYT articles as you care to. Or at least I can…

    Dorothy,

    Not going to re-post it, but comment #121 on the now-obsolete previous thread has some thoughts about the word “jagoff,” which you referred to. It’s used in Chicago, as well as Pittsburgh…

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  5. Kristen said on February 16, 2018 at 6:42 pm

    For those of you who may be interested, Gin and Tacos has launched a podcast: Mass for Shut-Ins (on Google).

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  6. Sherri said on February 16, 2018 at 7:02 pm

    Of all the things I dislike about social media, the thing I hate the most is that I can’t control and prioritize my feed: https://www.buzzfeed.com/katienotopoulos/how-i-cracked-facebooks-new-algorithm-and-tortured-my

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  7. Suzanne said on February 16, 2018 at 7:04 pm

    I broke down and subscribed to the WaPo. $80 for the year for limited internet access. I figured it was worth it.

    I kind of feel a change, too, in the reactions to this school shooting but we’ll see. It’s all so ludacrous to hear the politicians who take millions from the NRA swearing that they can’t do anything to stop it. Maybe their reasoning is starting to fall apart about the good guy with the gun. There WAS an armed guard at the school but he wasn’t in the area where it happened & couldn’t get there in time. I think there were people carrying in Las Vegas, too, but too far away or they couldn’t figure out where the shooting was coming from.

    It all makes me think of videos of African countries with groups of armed bandits roaming the countryside and being horrified. We are pretty much there now. Maybe this time, more will stand up and say, “Enough!”

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  8. David C. said on February 16, 2018 at 7:09 pm

    There haven’t been that many school shooting is like “No, Roy Moore is an ephebophile, not a pedophile”. A kid diddler is a kid diddler and five school shootings is still too damned many.

    For the five article limits, I use Edge, IE, Chrome, and Firefox. You get five for each without having to mess with cleaning your browser(s).

    Nice cabinets. I like the white and the simple lines. It looks like the end is near. Not bad, I’ve known people who have had their kitchens in a shambles for months. Usually those who try to do it themselves ’cause it looks so easy on HGTV.

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  9. Julie Robinson said on February 16, 2018 at 7:51 pm

    When I bought my sister a Kindle, it came with a WaPo subscription for a year, then an offer for 3.99/month. She loved the option and I was happy to continue it as an easy gift. Now I’ve transferred it to my computer and it’s been great to have unlimited reading privileges. They’re doing good work and I’m happy to support it. NYT is pricier than I want to pay though I think about it.

    Nancy I can sooo feel your pain. The contractors had just started demo on our lanai and roof project in Orlando when my sister died. We were mourning, exhausted, trying to handle all her final matters, and felt under siege. There was no question of halting them, as it had taken almost a year to find them and there was no guarantee they’d come back. The noise was deafening, especially when they were on the roof. We left whenever we could but it was just plain awful. Awful squared.

    But I love your cabinets! Our are white too. We took out cherry, which was lovely, but too dark and depressing. And we reconfigured from awkward, and broken up, to a layout that works beautifully.

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  10. Jolene said on February 16, 2018 at 8:10 pm

    There haven’t been that many school shooting is like “No, Roy Moore is an ephebophile, not a pedophile”. A kid diddler is a kid diddler and five school shootings is still too damned many.

    Of course, five school shootings is too many. One is too many.

    But we are drowning in misinformation in this country. We can’t call out or counter the absurd exaggerations and conspiracies of the kooky right if we are relying on made up facts.

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  11. Jolene said on February 16, 2018 at 8:13 pm

    I’m curious, Nance. Did you get pull-out drawers for your base cabinets? My mother had those, and they were a dream. My El Cheapo apartment cabinets are narrow and deep, and it’s a pain to extract anything that isn’t right in front.

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  12. Jolene said on February 16, 2018 at 8:28 pm

    A bit of “this time is different” evidence: The Women’s March organizers have scheduled a national school walkout for March 14.

    Organizing is just getting started, but there is a lot of organizing energy in that enterprise.

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  13. beb said on February 16, 2018 at 9:28 pm

    I’m glad to hear that the Woman’s March is holding a school shooting protest. One evidence that this time is different is the number of students who have taken to social media to complain that the government (AKA Trump) is doing nothing to protest them.

    Sherri @6: I’m not on Facebook, etc, but I know what you mean about not being able to tailor the news I see. I log into Yahoo News once or twice a day. I get tired from the clickbait from sponsored content but more than that at least once a week there is some article about the Duggars. The horrible, train-wreck of a religious fanatic family. I want to never ever hear a word about the Duggars ever again but is there some way to ban them from my Yahoo News page? Of course not. I’d also like to ban news from Fox “News” which is all lies and fabrications, the New York Post, and a few other sites who spread conservative lies. I’d also ban the NYtimes, WaPo and Forbes since they’re always firewalled. Why see links to their stories if I can’t read them?

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  14. Charlotte said on February 16, 2018 at 9:56 pm

    Just saw Black Panther — and you guys, it’s gorgeous, and smart, and funny, and utopian, and the effects are amazing. Oh, and all the people are gorgeous (well, not Martin Freeman, but I have a soft spot for him anyhow). Really, I haven’t seen a movie in a theater in years, and I might just go again tomorrow so I can pay attention to all the stuff that went by while I was waiting to find out what happened.
    (And we get 1st run movies like this in our tiny town theater because it’s owned by the sister of the guys who own one of the big chains …)

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  15. Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on February 16, 2018 at 9:57 pm

    And Bob Mueller wasn’t done this fearsome Friday — a Manafort indictment to boot. It’s like he’s keeping the pressure on people to . . . hmmmmm.

    I’d say Trump is a lock to be impeached before a second term is even under debate, but my track record on prophecy is so bad I’d hate to jinx the possibility.

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  16. alex said on February 16, 2018 at 10:17 pm

    Maybe their reasoning is starting to fall apart about the good guy with the gun.

    Starting to fall apart? When was it ever coherent? It’s of a piece with the same simplistic libertarian logic that a business market unfettered by regulation will police itself and the good will be rewarded and the bad punished by the consumer, who holds all the power. Those people won’t ever give up their magical thinking. They’ll just double down on it every time events prove them wrong.

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  17. Andrea said on February 16, 2018 at 10:59 pm

    Pay to support the Washington Post and the New York Times if you can. They are working hard to shine light on the parade of horrible that is this administration, and protect our democracy. They deserve our support to the extent that you can.

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  18. brian stouder said on February 16, 2018 at 11:22 pm

    What a long week this has been, eh?

    Let me be the argumentative one, and say that I read Jolene’s linked article the other day about the “inflated” school-shooting number (18 thus far) and came away in agreement with the higher number.

    The suicidal guy at the closed school certainly does “count” (imo) – as he was armed and was at a school parking lot (and he may have thought “just my luck, the place is closed”) and he fired the weapon and killed a person (himself).

    Here in the Fort Wayne area earlier this year, a kiddo brought a loaded fire-arm to school. His brother (somehow) found out, and took the loaded firearm from his brother, and hid it in the bathroom. Other kiddos saw this, and reported it – and the story pretty much ended there.

    This story had me literally gnashing my teeth. It was at a white, rural (non-FWCS) school, and the kiddos got a ‘pass’ – although there was some reference to maybe the sherriff paying a visit to see dad….or, as a friend eloquently put it – “they’re just good ol’ boys, never meanin’ no harm”.

    Leaving aside my strong suspicion that if those boys went to an urban school, and/or weren’t white, that same event would have ended in a drastically different way – how the hell can things like this happen?

    Aside from all that, I feel our Proprietress’s pain; our water-damage catastrophe, and subsequent household renaissance a few years ago was nothing less than a protracted trauma – despite the very pleasant end-state

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  19. Jolene said on February 16, 2018 at 11:32 pm

    “The suicidal guy at the closed school certainly does “count” (imo) – as he was armed and was at a school parking lot (and he may have thought “just my luck, the place is closed”) and he fired the weapon and killed a person (himself).”

    Brian, if these counts are to have any meaning, they must be based on what actually happened, not what might have happened under different circumstances.

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  20. brian stouder said on February 16, 2018 at 11:36 pm

    Jolene – I see your point, and I agree with your logic.

    I’m also saying that the ’18’ doesn’t include the armed chuckle-heads at the Fort Wayne area school, and is therefore arguably lower than the actual danger/threat presented to schools

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  21. Dexter said on February 17, 2018 at 12:55 am

    I understand how and why newspapers need capital to exist, and I went way overboard supporting newspapers when I could buy them from newsboxes with coins, so I did my duty. Now, I pay quite a bit for internet service, and whatever I can receive , I read. I accept that I’m paying for XM radio which is then full of commercials, and I pay for TV which is then crammed with commercials. The only truly honest amd wonderful service is Netflix. Very, very cheap and no commercials. You youngsters may not have heard this; in the 50s when most were getting TVs, word was out that soon, maybe even a long time from then, TV would be all pay-TV, and you’d have to have a big supply of quarters and half-dollars on hand to feed the TV to keep getting the signal, like the TV in Midnight Cowboy, the 1969 movie, in the hotel room. A collector would come by to get your coin box when alerted. I have complained before here, just a few days ago, how I really want to keep my movie and sports cable packages, so I am not really able to justify paywall teardowns. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOeKidp-iWo

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  22. basset said on February 17, 2018 at 6:38 am

    Way off topic once again… this article about dating in your 50s doesn’t apply to me or anyone I know, still interesting though:

    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/magazine/the-times-magazine/fiftysomething-seeks-much-younger-man-the-new-dating-dggb7d8fk

    Beb, let us know if you find a way to block the Duggars… I’d like to block the Howard Stern channels off my Sirius.

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  23. Connie said on February 17, 2018 at 7:12 am

    I also broke down and paid for WaPo, when they had a 39.95 Memorial Day special. And I blame it on Jeff(tmmo) for posting so many great links in facebook. NYT will prob be next.

    I am recovering from tooth implant surgery. My dad is a retired dentist. I hate it when I have to pay the dentist.

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  24. David C. said on February 17, 2018 at 7:31 am

    But we are drowning in misinformation in this country. We can’t call out or counter the absurd exaggerations and conspiracies of the kooky right if we are relying on made up facts.

    They look, to me, to be completely above board on how they categorize shootings at schools and the backgrounds of those shootings. You can quibble about whether all their categories should count as school shootings, but I don’t think it qualifies as misinformation. A gun discharging a bullet, even accidentally, potentially puts the school at risk. For WaPo to say school wasn’t in session at the time for some of them is disingenuous. At least around here, there’s something going on at out schools just about all the time. A fortunate quirk of timing doesn’t negate the potential. I feel the same about the accidental discharges of weapons that were there legally that they say shouldn’t count. If a gun fires in a school and the bullet doesn’t hit flesh, did the gun fire? The Post doesn’t seem to think so, but Everytown does, and I agree. So what was the point in The Post’s article. I dunno. The same point as cheerleading for the Iraq war probably. Shitting on libs for fun and profit?

    https://everytownresearch.org/reports/analysis-of-school-shootings/

    https://everytownresearch.org/documents/2016/05/analysis-school-shootings-appendix.pdf

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  25. Pam said on February 17, 2018 at 8:34 am

    When my kitchen was being remodeled, I cleaned every day. And twice on dry wall dust days. But, when we had the basement dried out, now that was the worst, worst, worst!!! I closed all of the furnace vents in the house and turned off the furnace to stop the dirt circulating everywhere. It was April and still nippy, but I didn’t care. Oh the dirt! (said to the tune of “oh the humanity”). Fortunately, it was only 3 days. The kitchen will be finished soon and will be so worth it as you move with ease through your beautiful new kitchen.

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  26. Deborah said on February 17, 2018 at 9:33 am

    I agree with David C. A school’s premises should be considered a “sacred” place where guns are never allowed, ever. To expose children to the trauma of the presence of a gun isn’t good for them. Even after hours. Events are often happening when school isn’t officially in session. It should just become common knowledge that is how it is. Counting it the way Everytown does seems fair to me. I don’t think security guards should even carry guns in schools. Keep them out of there, period.

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  27. David C. said on February 17, 2018 at 9:47 am

    Good news for speaking about the tRump regime. The trademark for Dumpster is expired.

    https://trademarks.justia.com/721/96/dumpster-72196260.html

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  28. alex said on February 17, 2018 at 10:19 am

    I bought a Post subscription even though in the past I’d subscribed to the NYT. The latter has sacrificed its integrity trying to mollify conservative critics who can’t be appeased, and its coverage of the 2016 presidential race is Exhibit A.

    If you need any proof that the right-wing agitprop machine now sets the mainstream media agenda, look no further than such stories as Everytown’s “inflated” school shooting numbers. Everytown now joins Planned Parenthood and ACORN in the nation’s consciousness as a discredited institution while the Club for Growth, Heritage Foundation, etc. that don’t just massage statistics but invent them from whole cloth get a pass. It’s just like the NYT’s fixation on Hillary’s e-mails and Benghazi during the 2016 campaign.

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  29. Deggjr said on February 17, 2018 at 10:57 am

    Echoing Alex @28, I bought a WaPo digital subscription because they were the first to do indepth research on Trump. The NYTimes is lukewarm echo IMHO.

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  30. Sherri said on February 17, 2018 at 11:01 am

    Connie, I hope your recovery goes well. Tooth implant surgery is in my near future, but I’m putting it off for a couple of months. Mine is going to involve two surgeries, one to extract the tooth and do a bone graft, the second to place the post for the implant. Is that what you’re dealing with? I’m not looking forward to six months or more with a temporary tooth for one of my front teeth, that I have to remove for eating.

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  31. David C. said on February 17, 2018 at 11:05 am

    NPR has found the nub of the problem. Smartphones.

    https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2018/02/17/586534079/should-the-parkland-shooting-change-how-we-think-about-phones-schools-and-safety

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  32. Sherri said on February 17, 2018 at 11:15 am

    I get the WaPo’s point about the Everytown numbers. I get Everytown’s point about the numbers, too: a shooting at a school, no matter the circumstances, can connect with a kid in a way that other shootings don’t, and make them feel uneasy.

    We’re close friends with a family whose son was five when Columbine happened. They lived in Massachusetts at the time, so not close to it, didn’t know anyone involved. The young boy was totally freaked out by the event, and had trouble sleeping for a while.

    And while we quibble over exactly how many school shooting there have been this year, people like Alex Jones spew out garbage about false flags and staged scenes. I’m not saying we should make up stuff, but Everytown didn’t make up that number, they made a judgement about what to count, and the WaPo made a different one. They are counting different things for different reasons, and rather than declaring Everytown’s numbers simply wrong or propaganda, maybe the WaPo should acknowledge that.

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  33. Deborah said on February 17, 2018 at 11:19 am

    Oh my God, talking about cellphones when they should be driving home the problem with guns. NPR can be so tone deaf.

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  34. alex said on February 17, 2018 at 11:38 am

    Oh my God, talking about cellphones when they should be driving home the problem with guns. NPR can be so tone deaf.

    Or tuned in to the right-wing drumbeat calling for NPR’s disbandment.

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  35. Jolene said on February 17, 2018 at 12:16 pm

    . . . Everytown didn’t make up that number, they made a judgement about what to count, and the WaPo made a different one. They are counting different things for different reasons, and rather than declaring Everytown’s numbers simply wrong or propaganda, maybe the WaPo should acknowledge that.

    They are definitely counting different things, but I’m not so sure their goals differ. I think the WaPo writers believe the Everytown counts are imprecise and overly inclusive. They acknowledge that it can be difficult to determine how to categorize certain events, and provide a substantial number of examples that clearly fit and others that are more dubious.

    Much like trying to define a mass shooting, deciding what is and is not a school shooting can be difficult. Some obviously fit the common-sense definition: Last month, a teen in Texas opened fire in a school cafeteria, injuring a 15-year-old girl.

    Others that Everytown includes on its list, though, are trickier to categorize.

    The WaPo writers are not arguing that gun violence is a minor problem. Indeed, they say it is a crisis, especially for children. Rather, they are arguing that the Everytown includes instances of dubious relevance and, in doing so, exposes itself to avoidable challenges from people who really do want to discredit them.

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  36. Connie said on February 17, 2018 at 12:50 pm

    Sherri this was the implant post surgery on the side where two teeth next to each other have been missing for several years.

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  37. Brandon said on February 17, 2018 at 1:37 pm

    http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/moscow-calls-us-vote-meddling-claims-blabber-fantasies/ar-BBJfdSd?ocid=ientp

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  38. Icarus said on February 17, 2018 at 3:23 pm

    Didn’t Moms Against Drunk Driving make a significant impact on drinking and driving? There is another mom’s group that is taking on the gun control and school shooting problem. I think if anyone has a chance of changing the culture, it’s united moms.

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  39. Jakash said on February 17, 2018 at 3:42 pm

    I agree with Alex’s second paragraph @ 28.

    On the left, we debate “Is this number correct, should a different number be used, what should we be counting?” and newspapers issue corrections if something is determined to have been misreported. On the right, the Maximum Leader says that “An ‘extremely credible source’ has called my office and told me that @BarackObama’s birth certificate is a fraud” and just doubles down on that bullshit for 5 years. While putting the words “extremely credible source” inside quotation marks, himself! He first conceded that the Access Hollywood tape was legitimate by arguing that it was just “locker room talk” and then over a year later tried floating the idea that the tape itself was not authentic. It’s not just that he lies, but that he lies so transparently about things that can easily be determined to be lies.

    Part of the reason that the “fake news” charge has any resonance is because on the right they actually *are* pushing fake news, so it’s easy for an uninformed observer to assume that everybody is.

    Yeah, Icarus, Alex made that point eloquently a while back after a previous shooting. That attitudes toward drinking and driving, smoking, second-hand smoke and other things have gradually changed over time, thanks partly to concerted efforts by concerned folks and that one may hope that the ubiquity of guns may be next. Also, not just the moms, but the kids themselves seem to be having an impact, this time:

    https://twitter.com/car_nove/status/964122342464081921

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  40. David C. said on February 17, 2018 at 6:21 pm

    With everything else going on, this isn’t getting much play, but Google douche James Damore lost round one.

    https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-02-16/google-firing-of-damore-was-legal-u-s-labor-panel-lawyer-said?utm_content=tictoc&utm_campaign=socialflow-organic&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&cmpid%3D=socialflow-twitter-tictoc

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  41. Joe Kobiela said on February 17, 2018 at 7:46 pm

    Nancy,
    Buddy sent a video to me about a indoor velodrome in the D, just wondering if you knew anything about it. Seems it was built by a anonymous donor. High bank 1/10th of a mile.
    Pilot Joe

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  42. Sherri said on February 17, 2018 at 9:41 pm

    The local Facebook group for Redmond now has a thread started by someone wanting to put metal detectors at Redmond High School. Of course, our district also failed a bond measure just last week, too, so it’s unclear how the people pushing for it expect to pay for it.

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  43. Dexter said on February 18, 2018 at 1:40 am

    Maureen Dowd says https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/17/opinion/sunday/appeasing-the-trigger-gods.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=opinion-c-col-left-region&region=opinion-c-col-left-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-left-region after the angels were cut down at Sandy Hook/Newtown, she gave up trying to change the world’s gun problems, as she realized there was no hope. I understand her thoughts, as I quit complaining about repugg Presidents when the feeble-minded voters somehow got Trump elected. Maybe my hope will be partially realized this fall but I doubt it, remembering so well 2006, when dems got control and Pelosi and Kerry and all but a few pushed to keep funding Bush’s Folly: the Iraq invasion, blue thumbs, instilling freedom, sending tons and tons of cash to Chalabi…so what if the dems seize Congress? We’ve seen that movie too.

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  44. Deborah said on February 18, 2018 at 5:22 am

    Awakened before 4am local time to the sound of helicopters and about a million flashing lights up the street, something major happening at the Hancock building, I think?

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  45. Icarus said on February 18, 2018 at 8:57 am

    Deborah, a fire apparently

    http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-met-fire-john-hancock-20180218-story.html#nt=oft11aH-2li2

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  46. Deborah said on February 18, 2018 at 9:10 am

    Well, I guess it wasn’t that major, a fire in one unit, but man there must have been 20 different emergency vehicles on Delaware and at least 2 helicopters. It was loud.

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  47. Diane said on February 18, 2018 at 9:25 am

    I dropped my NYT subscription in favor of WaPo for the reasons above (alex @28, Deggir @29 and Connie @23) combined with the fact that after years of getting the Sunday print paper delivered (I had a nice Sunday print plus online deal) we called because we didn’t get an issue and they said my house didn’t exist and so they couldn’t deliver it. They had no interest in hearing that they had been delivering it and that they deliver to neighbors. So after subscribing for decades, I said screw it, I’ll do WaPo online.

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  48. basset said on February 18, 2018 at 10:07 am

    Yoko’s 85 today.

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  49. Deborah said on February 18, 2018 at 10:35 am

    Trump went on quite a tweet storm. He must be scared shitless.

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  50. susan said on February 18, 2018 at 12:35 pm

    Y’all hear Emma Gonzalez?

    The kids are going to save this country, if, indeed, it is reclaimable.

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  51. Sherri said on February 18, 2018 at 1:13 pm

    Gun advocates are quick to bring up mental health to deflect attention away from guns in the wake of mass shootings. They never seem to bring up domestic violence.

    http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/tv/ct-mov-how-we-talk-about-domestic-violence-movies-0216-story.html

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  52. Suzanne said on February 18, 2018 at 1:37 pm

    I noticed the reports that the Trumpster was madly tweeting at 11:30pm last night. He must be getting nervous. Very nervous.

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  53. Jolene said on February 18, 2018 at 1:44 pm

    Yesterday, it was reported that Trump was refraining from playing golf out of respect for the Parkland victims. Haven’t heard whether he’s been out on the course today, but his tweeting suggests not.

    Really, the more golf, the better for us all. Fewer country-destroying tweets; less likelihood of nuclear war.

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  54. basset said on February 18, 2018 at 3:20 pm

    Wore my “Still Pissed at Yoko” shirt to Costco today and got about a half-dozen comments, all positive. Another one in Target as I was typing this.

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  55. Jakash said on February 18, 2018 at 3:22 pm

    Well, here’s a popular NYT article. Well, “popular” in that it’s garnered 900 comments, not in that anybody agrees with it. “Why Yoga Pants Are Bad for Women.”

    https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/17/opinion/sunday/yoga-pants-sweatpants-women.html?

    My favorite take is a reply to the Twitter post about this. A modified Nancy Drew book cover: “The Mysterious Night We Buried Our Last Fuck.”

    https://twitter.com/nytopinion/status/965122180609699840

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