vxbush 4/10/2023 5:49:06 AM

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That is a mighty fine breakfast spread for the Monday after Easter. 

Good morning, campers! I'll see what kind of news I can find today. Maybe I'll find something good. You never know. It won't be good news from the Biden administration, we know, but there could be good news out there somewhere. 

vxbush 4/10/2023 6:25:40 AM

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Here's a piece of good news: Glory Be! Pelosi Pounded by NYC Hecklers “Sad, Old Drunk”

Every once in a while, NYC comes through!

vxbush 4/10/2023 6:39:45 AM

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Not so good news: Techno-Hell: AI Firm Scrapes 30 Billion Social Media Photos, Hands Them to Law Enforcement

As I recall, ClearView, the firm in question, is very much a product of Democrat players. Wikipedia disagrees, and says the founders were far-right personality and quotes articles from Huffington Post to support this position. I'll have to do more research on this to figure out where the truth is.

Notice that they gave these pictures to law enforcement, whereas earlier articles (CNN, ACLU) indicate that the company agreed to restrict the sales of photos they scraped from the Internet. I have to seriously wonder if they really are just grabbing those photos on Facebook that are marked as public or if they have a custom gig with FB and other media companies to scrape everything, like the government does.

vxbush 4/10/2023 6:42:29 AM

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Appeals Court Calls Into Question Hundreds of January 6 Prosecutions

I don't hold out much hope of anyone behaving honorably when it comes to January 6 issues. The swamp runs deep.

vxbush 4/10/2023 6:43:48 AM

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Stacey Abrams Has a New Gig (and Thank God It’s Not in Georgia)

It's a DEI job at Howard University, which means she'll get to spout all sorts of nonsense and get paid lots of bucks for it. 

vxbush 4/10/2023 6:46:52 AM

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Occasional Reader 4/10/2023 7:05:31 AM

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Greetings from the Windy City, where violent guns behaved violently this weekend;

https://abc7chicago.com/chicago-weekend-shootings-today-violence-police/13108671/

Occasional Reader 4/10/2023 7:09:30 AM

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And no, we won’t be taking mass transit.

https://abc7chicago.com/chicago-cta-crime-red-line-train/13107614/

“This is MAGA country!”

vxbush 4/10/2023 7:11:57 AM

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The frenzy with which leftists support abortion is really rather weird: Whitmer Repeals Michigan’s 1931 Pro-Life Law

vxbush 4/10/2023 7:13:56 AM

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I missed this story last Friday:  longshoremen shut down 2 CA ports today

How long will this strike be in place, and how long will Biden use it as an excuse? Because no one is talking about shipping issues lately.

vxbush 4/10/2023 7:16:14 AM

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JCM 4/10/2023 7:34:52 AM

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Reply to vxbush in 11:

The whole saga is a comedy of errors. It started with cops arresting baristas as prostitutes. That fell apart when no services were actually rendered. Everett tried indecent exposure. Finally tried a new law, but because it targeted only baristas it fell through.

JCM 4/10/2023 7:40:05 AM

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Reply to vxbush in 4:

Jan. 6 trials are a test run for Beris style Show Trials.

Occasional Reader 4/10/2023 7:52:26 AM

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Reply to vxbush in 4:

“ But for those defendants who are charged only with obstructing Congress”

(Concept does not apply to TN state legislature)

vxbush 4/10/2023 9:17:27 AM

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In #14 Occasional Reader said: (Concept does not apply to TN state legislature)

I have no doubt that "prosecutorial discretion" will be applied when desired. 

vxbush 4/10/2023 1:58:26 PM

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Occasional Reader 4/10/2023 2:44:42 PM

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JCM 4/10/2023 2:54:38 PM

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Reply to vxbush in 16:

I'm sure the National Archives approved of the unsecured storage in Chinatown.

JCM 4/10/2023 3:00:13 PM

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69-year-old stabbed at Seattle park after his family shared food with 2 men

SEATTLE — A 69-year-old man is recovering in the hospital after being stabbed at a Seattle park, allegedly by a man who had just been given food by the 69-year-old's family.

The stabbing happened Sunday afternoon near The Center for Wooden Boats at Lake Union Park in the South Lake Union neighborhood.

Leila Perez told KOMO News at the scene that her family was there to celebrate a birthday and had given food to two men who they believed were homeless. She said the second man attacked her family for no reason.

The location is right next to the high tech hub of downtown, so very upscale. Not a skid road by any means.... but all of downtown has become skid road.

buzzsawmonkey 4/10/2023 3:01:03 PM

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In #17 Occasional Reader said: The Field Museum was wonderful, and remarkably hassle-free. Little OR was in heaven.  Shedd Aquarium was good, too.

I spent a big fat chunk of my formative years going to the Field Museum.  It's fantastic.  If you get a chance to go the Museum of Science and Industry, down in Hyde Park, do---lots of interactive exhibits (gears you can play with, and the like), a model coal mine that you have to descend into, and a German U-boat that you can walk through.  

It's one of the few buildings left from the original Columbian Exposition.  It also happens to be the site of the secret meeting at which Edward Teller gave my father the go-ahead to develop his tritium process for the development of the H-bomb.

Occasional Reader 4/10/2023 3:32:26 PM

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Reply to buzzsawmonkey in 20:

Thanks for the recommendation, I’ll see if time permits for a visit go the MoS&I.

Perhaps my favorite aspect of the Field was… we basically walked right in.  Scanned our e-tickets at a kiosk, no line; and that was it.  In contrast, when we tried to visit the Museum of Natural History in NYC in January, the line to pass through the ONE entrance and clear security ran out the door and wrapped halfway around the block; and this, on a frigid day, when Little OR was just over a cough/cold.  I took one look and pulled the plug on the visit.

buzzsawmonkey 4/10/2023 3:50:19 PM

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Reply to Occasional Reader in 21:

The Museum of Science and Industry is---or was, I haven't been in some time---often crowded, and noisy; it's a favorite place to take kids because of the interactivity of the exhibits. 

As I said, there are a lot of demonstration exhibits of the way different gears work, and it used to be---I trust, still is---possible to crank the stuff that's behind the glass so you can see the way they work.  Sounds like something Little OR might get a kick out of.  They used to have (again, may still have) a chick incubator where they hatch out eggs and you can see the live baby chicks.  I've already mentioned the U-boat and the coal mine; there's also a giant model of a human heart that you can walk through and check it out from the inside.  A lot of cool stuff, especially for the young.

The Shedd Aquarium, IIRC, was built for the Century of Progress exhibition in 1933, as was the Adler Planetarium, which is on a promontory jutting into the lake.  The Field, I think, is contemporary with the Columbian Exposition, but was not a part of it, as the Exposition was down in Hyde Park.  The Midway Plaisance, the parkway that runs from the Illinois Central tracks past the University of Chicago, is what gave the name "midway" to carnival midways---it was the strip with the honky-tonk attractions, including the cootch dancer Little Egypt, and the first-ever Ferris Wheel, which was designed and built by engineer George Ferris to give the Exposition an attraction to rival the Eiffel Tower at the prior Paris Exposition. 

People did not believe the wheel would work; it was huge.  It was many stories tall, with cars the size of subway cars to accommodate the masses of sightseers who'd take the ride around in the wheel and be able to look out over the Exposition and the entire city.  

The median strip in the Midway is sunken because it was originally intended to be a canal---but they realized while building the fairgrounds that if they let the lake into the canal, as originally planned, it would flood the entire South Side.

buzzsawmonkey 4/10/2023 3:55:27 PM

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Reply to Occasional Reader in 21: Reply to buzzsawmonkey in 22:

Also, the "White City," as the Columbian Exposition was called, was the site where serial killer H.H. Holmes plied his trade.  His exploits were memorialized in the book "The Devil in the White City."

Occasional Reader 4/10/2023 7:40:04 PM

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Reply to buzzsawmonkey in 23:

I read that, maybe 15 years ago. interesting book.