9 responses to “News & Links:
Monday, February 19, 2024”

1. 

   Doug Holland

   02/20/2024

   Oh my. Until this morning, the only Aimee Mann music I've heard was in the movie Magnolia, wherein she mumblewhispered several songs that drove me and my wife nuts in the theater. Wife said on the way home, "Every time that movie started to get interesting Aimee Mann came on mumblewhispering, and I wanted to throw the popcorn at her." The intent was to be 'haunting', or maybe it was a missetting in the theater's sound system that sent the quiet high notes through my head like a spike, but when anyone mentions Magnolia or Aimee Mann I still cringe. Following your link was the first *intentional* Aimee Mann in my life, but she sang that song instead of mumblewhispering, there were no brain spikes, and it was not unpleasant, even listened a second time, thanks.

   Chuck Berry rocked. It's cheating I know, but I saw Hail! Hail! Rock 'n' Roll and the memory tricks my head into thinking I saw him in concert.

   Greatest tea orchestra ever. 🙂 Also one of Mr McCartney's finest.

   And Mr Simon in a lovely performance of one of his best too.

   For a national anthem I'd still go with This Land is Your Land.

   Reply
2. 

   granville

   02/21/2024

   I must have watched the acorn video about 15 times and I can't stop laughing. This guy hurled himself to the ground at the sound of an acorn bouncing off his car. He did a barrel roll. He pointed his gun at his own car and emptied his clip, hoping to hit a man who had been patted down, handcuffed, strapped in by the safety belt in the back seat. He began screaming I'M HIT for reasons that nobody can fathom. His partner, a sergeant, also began opening fire into the car, before asking what she was shooting at. He then assures his fellow homicidal maniacs that I'M OKAY BUT I FEEL WEIRD. Meanwhile swat had arrived with rifles and deployed around the acorn and the terrified man in the backseat.

   Like this is the most insane cop video ever released. The ones where they actually murder people are not nearly as insane. It's like a skit from a Police Academy sequel. Astonishing.

   Reply
   1. 

      Doug Holland

      02/21/2024

      It's a great video, eh?

      In America, the background check for being a cop is minuscule, and frequently skipped. Training is a matter of weeks. To be fired, someone has to be flamboyantly incompetent *on camera*, and even then there's a job waiting in the neighboring suburbs because police experience gets anyone a job as a cop.

      I have read that none of this is like this in Europe. Caps have actual training, actual standards, and the worst cops actually get fired. But maybe that's a fairy tale.

      Reply
   2. 

      granville

      02/23/2024

      They do have incidents with local cops in the UK. Of course far fewer of their cops are armed, only "Authorised Firearms Officers."

      In Paris there's actually a "Place de la Bataille-de-Stalingrad" and a "Stalingrad Metro" station, which is wild, considering even Stalingrad is no longer called Stalingrad. I was checking it out and found it was at the time kind of "ground zero" for migrants passing through Paris on their way north to try to cross into the UK. I talked to a group of them, they had few worries about local police (maybe because this was a containment area where they were directed to and temporarily tolerated their existence, I guess) but hated and feared the Interior Ministry police. A couple of them had been beaten up when "caught" which they implied basically meant having the cops stumble across a migrant camp outside of Stalingrad.

      I don't know if a migrant's impressions are universal to even all migrants, but considering they're now considered the "worst" of society (now in more continents!) I thought it was a valid take.

      But supposedly cops of all kinds in Paris kill about 13 people during traffic stops every year: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-66038227

      Reply
   3. 

      Doug Holland

      02/23/2024

      I have never been to France, but also never particularly wanted to. They don't even speak English.

      On the killer-cop link from Paris, this kinda blew my mind:

      > The officer accused of shooting him has been detained on homicide charges.

      That was the morning after the killing. On those rare occasions when killer-cops are prosecuted in America, they first walk free for months or years after the deed.

      And why is it always *migrants* who get scapegoated and hated and herded into camps? Why not priests, cops, politicians, all of whom do so much more damage, and intentionally?

      Reply
3. 

   johnthebasket

   02/23/2024

   When the third Homo Erectus read a book and became a Homo Sapiens Sapiens, the first guy got the Tenth Avenue Freezeout treatment. We see ourselves as inclusive, but we are an exclusive species. Somebody has to take the rap for this madness, and it ain't gonna be me. Blame an immigrant.

   John

   Reply
   1. 

      Doug Holland

      02/23/2024

      So much anger and hatred and blame, not just in America but all over the world, for people who cross an imaginary border looking for work, safety, better lives. Give me an immigrant as a neighbor, over a Republican any and every time.

      Reply
   2. 

      granville

      02/24/2024

      Right, it's comical that they're trying to make me believe I have more solidarity with Jamie Dimon or Lindsay Graham than some guy who digs in literal dirt for under the table wages.

      (Sadly it'll work though.)

      Reply
   3. 

      Doug Holland

      02/24/2024

      You know this, but I'll say it anyway: lizards like Dimon and Graham have no interest in the lives of any of their lessers, and to the lizards, we are *all* lessers unless they know us by name from their meetings or dinner parties.

      I am not courageous enough to hasten their deaths like they're hastening mine, but news of their demise is always welcome.

      Reply

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